Did LANDesk Miss the Managed Services Boat?

When I heard LANDesk is up for sale yet again, it made me wonder: Did LANDesk -- an early leader in PC management -- fail to cash in on the managed services boom? At $150 million in annual revenues, you'd think a healthy portion of LANDesk's business would involve managed services providers. But is that true?

No doubt, LANDesk has suffered a bit from multiple owner syndrome; the business has been purchased, sold, spun off and handed off more times than I can remember. Each time LANDesk changes owners, it triggers an inflection point -- forcing customers and partners to decide whether they want to continue investing in the platform.

Despite the repeated M&A activity, LANDesk still has a following among some VARs and MSPs. One recent example involvesEn Pointe Technologies, a national provider of IT products and services.

On March 31, En Pointe announced a systems management practice that involves LANDesk. En Pointe certainly sounds like it has plenty of managed services experience and hardware as a service (HaaS) experience. The company offers (1) traditional premise-based installations, (2) field and service desk to manage systems for customers, and (3) by supplying the hardware+service through a monthly subscription model.

Still, I don't hear from many MSPs that are leveraging LANDesk. The company's current owner, Emerson Network Power, isn't exactly a household name within the managed services market. But Emerson expects to sell off LANDesk by August 2010. I wonder if anyone within the MSP software industry will be among the bidders.

Sparxent have been delivering managed services exploiting the strengths of LANDesk for some 4+ years and have a growing portfolio of very happy customers, the overwhelming majority of whom renew and continue the service; some are into their 4th year.
In delivering an effective Managed Service it's all about setting the expectations of the customer and then exceeding them, a simple but effective concept. That is what Sparxent Active Control does.

As a proud member of yet another MSP that has been offering LANDesk Managed Services since LANDesk was owned by Intel, I think the reason LANDesk hasn't offered Managed Services before is because they have an established channel of Partners, and some of us DO offer Managed Services.
The channel itself is responsible for 100% of all software sales and m-o-s-t delivery services offered to date. It's also where most of the experienced LANDesk Implementation Engineers hang their hat today.
There is no doubt that companies can find great value in a Managed Service Provider. I personally have witnessed countless clients that gave us their shelf-ware and let us show them how to realize an ROI that not only exceeds the cost of our servicea, but also the cost of the LANDesk Product itself over managing it themselves.
-Anonymous

This would be an interesting article if you were going to speculate on real potential buyers. As for Landesk suffering I'm not seeing it. They have the best customer service out there and Sales continue to grow because of it and lack of comparable competitors. It will likely depend on the new company's strategy moving forward but from what we have seen in the past, they continue to do their thing and take care of business.

What About Bob: Thanks for your comment. Our forums remain open to all readers... but I always like to get a feel for the people behind the comments: Do you represent a VAR? MSP? LANDesk employee? LANDesk partner? How long have you been involved with LANDesk?
Thanks in advance for the additional insights.
-jp

I'm an employee, and have been for a few years, ever since we were a private company. The cool thing about LANDesk is that even when Avocent bought us, we were pretty much left us alone to do our thing. Emerson is also doing the same thing, possibly with an even more hands-off approach, since they plan to spin us off. Our culture and innovation has remained intact, which I think speaks highly of our company. I can honestly say, I have never worked with more brilliant and innovative people. Also, I agree with Bob. Our customer support team rocks! :-)

"the business has been purchased, sold, spun off and handed off more times than I can remember."
You must not have a very good memory. LANDesk sput out of Intel in 2002, was bought by Avocent in 2006, then Avocent was bought by Emerson in 2010. So that makes 1 for spun off, and 2 for sold. I can understand how that can be a lot for you to remember. ;-)

SlickSophie: Thanks for the recap. Toss in the latest pending sale, and that's 4 transactions -- three of which occurred in the past 4 years. Not exactly the type of history that gives VARs and MSPs peace of mind...
-jp